Re: Portals vs Links

Mark Waks ([email protected])
Fri, 5 May 95 14:11:01 EDT


clay suggests:
>Why not present the option of having _both_ the link and the portal?
>The link would provide a means of moving from place to place while the
>portal would provide a view of another place. And then you could combine
>the two to make the conventional doorway. Yes, zooming from place to
>place without walking through a door is counterintuitive by our physical
>world standards, but why not alter intuition? If you want all your places
>to have link/portals (a door), go for it... but why make that the
>only way? flexibility.

Well, we already *have* links -- that's more-or-less exactly the
current WWWAnchor node. I'm not proposing doing away with that. I'm
suggesting that we *add* the more real-world means of communication,
the Portal. If people want to keep using links/anchors, that's their
prerogative; I suspect most won't, but there's no especially good
reason to take the capability *out*...

However, a link + a window is *not* really a true portal -- it doesn't
have the concepts of spatial continuity that are critical to making
Cyberspace feel natural. That's why I'm pushing hard for true Portals,
rather than just hacks...

-- Justin

Random Quote du Jour:

"To a Russian, death is a serious matter. Life is no joke either."
-- from The Assassination Bureau